any official terminology?

[Ron at]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Spies" <spies at zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Re: any official terminology?


snip
> Ron Gatrelle wrote: "The purpose of parenthesis in *Xus
> bus (Smith), 1888 ...".
> The second bracket is misplaced here, the form of citation recommended
> by the Code would be "Xus bus (Smith, 1888)".

Martin, Thanks for the correction on my being brain dead on that one -
several times over :-)bn.

>
> Ron Gatrelle also wrote: "Thus, the solution is the proper formal
> citation of taxa ... rather than the short hand ... where author
> and/or date is not included."
> According to the Code, citing a species name as Xus bus only, without
> authorship and date, is NOT a "short hand" or even improper way of
> citation,

Correct re the Code.  My use of "formal" was respective of editorial
practices not the Code body.  Otherwise I would have used the phrase "Code
compliant".   As we all know, it is proper to give a full citation of a
scientific name at least the first time it is used in a paper.   This is
because it is a reference and not just a name.  My contention is that when
properly referenced by a full citation of name / author / date any
confusion as the status is automatically taken care of and any further
notation is redundant.   Re short hand, the most frequent thing I have to
do as a Lepidoptera editor is to get authors to give a proper citation for
host plants - or other vegitation they mention.  While citing the insects
with at least author, they will invariablly just cite plants by the name
alone and some times just by the common name.   It is always more difficult
to find such details in biota one is not familiar with or has scientific
literature on.   But, to me, that is part of doing a thorough scientific
paper - one tracks down these details.  Probably the second most common
thing, in this type of editing, is the use of a species name at the
beginning of a sentence which makes it begin with a capitol letter.
Another formal practice not part of Code body, but a Code recomendation.

The bottom line to the posted question is as Thomas Lammers first stated -
No.  There is no "official" way of stating this.  Thus, it is a matter of
editorial practice is it not.

Ron